Priming the Prerace Pump

The morning before the 1984 Olympic Marathon Trials, Pete Pfitzinger ran four miles. By that afternoon, he says, “I was feeling cooped up,” so he did what he’d done most days over the last several months—he went for a run before dinner. In this case, it was a three-miler followed by a handful of striders. The next day, Pfitzinger was the surprise winner of the trials, outsprinting Alberto Salazar to get the victory in a personal best of 2:11:43.

Doubling the day before a marathon is admittedly extreme—Pfitzinger never did so again—but it’s an example of how elites approach prerace routines differently than many runners. Here are some things to do in the few days before a race that will leave you rested but not sluggish, energized but not exhausted.

Fine-Tune Your Taper

The point of tapering is to allow you to make the best use of your fitness on race day. Meeting that goal is not synonymous with running as little and as slowly as possible.

“Many people take the day off before a race, and I think that is usually a mistake,” says Pfitzinger, the top American finisher at the 1984 and 1988 Olympic marathons, and now the CEO of the New Zealand track federation and co-author of three running books, including Advanced Marathoning. “If you are used to running most days, then the muscles will tend to tighten up on a day off. A light run the day before a race will make your muscles feel better and help you relax, and the energy used is quickly replenished.”

Pfitzinger’s advice underscores a larger principle: Regular training makes being active your body’s default state. Give it the right doses of what it’s used to, and it will respond more favorably than if you suddenly introduce new variables soon before a race.

“The most counterproductive thing people do before a big race is just jog for the week or two before,” says Joe Rubio, coach of the Asics Aggies and co-owner of runningwarehouse.com. “That just leaves you sluggish. Do the same stuff you normally do: Run on the same days of the week, run the same paces and distances in workouts. Just do less of it.”

Two weeks before a key race, Rubio’s runners do 80 percent of their normal weekly mileage as well as volume of repetitions in hard workouts (e.g., they’ll do four 1200-meter repeats instead of five). That figure drops to 60 percent of normal in the week before the goal race. Their last really hard, race-pace workout is 10 to 14 days before the key race. Four days before, “they’ll do a solid workout, but nothing heroic,” Rubio says, such as 400-meter repeats at 5K pace or 800-meter repeats at 10K pace, with the hard running totaling two miles.

Rubio extends the advisability of maintaining routine to diet and sleep. “If you tell yourself you need more sleep and then you don’t get it, you’re just going to get stressed,” he says.

Don’t Vegetate—Activate

Some of Rubio’s athletes are marathoners, but what they do the day before racing 26.2 miles isn’t that different from what Olympian Kate Grace does the day before racing 800 or 1500 meters. The common goal is what’s known as “activation,” or invigorating their muscles and nervous system in an untaxing way so that they won’t feel sluggish on race day.

“The day before a race, I go to the track and go through my prerace routine,” Grace says. “All the drills, all the [foam] rolling, especially focusing on drills to get my muscles firing. I’m getting my body primed.”

After running a few easy miles, Grace does running form drills involving fast motions, such as quick feet and various skips, followed by short striders, and ending with longer striders. She does the striders at a variety of paces, with an emphasis on feeling fast and fluid; the total distance she covers in the series of striders doesn’t exceed 800 meters.

Race-Day Routine

“The ideal situation before a race is that you don’t have to think about what you’re going to do when,” Rubio says. Or, as Grace puts it, “I leave no decisions to myself so that my race-day brain doesn’t take over,” by which she means the one that amplifies niggles, doubts, and fears. “Some people are too focused too early on race day,” Pfitzinger says. “It helps to have a routine that helps you relax rather than thinking about the race too much.”

Continuing the principle of giving a trained body what it’s familiar with, Rubio recommends using the same warmup for races that you do before hard workouts. There’s also a logistical benefit to doing so: “It helps you time your warmup because you know how long it takes,” Rubio says. “The worst thing is to get to a race and not know when to warm up.”

For Rubio’s runners, Grace, and pretty much every elite, that warmup starts with easy running, but doesn’t end there. Form drills and striders get your muscular, nervous, and circulatory systems ready to operate at a high level from the start of the race. “Even some people who do drills and strides before workouts avoid them on race warmups because they think, ‘I’ll get tired.’ That’s just not true if you’re used to doing them,” Rubio says.

Note that important caveat about drills and striders: Race day is not the time to start doing them.

“Drills require learning and getting used to the correct technique, so it does not make sense to try drills unless you are used to them,” Pfitzinger says. “If you have done drills for several weeks, then it would be useful to include them in your race warmup. Strides require less learning than drills, so it is probably okay to do them as part of a race warmup even if you do not do them regularly, but do not try them for the very first time as part of your warmup.” (To get started on incorporating form drills into your program, watch these videos of Meb Keflezighi demonstrating some.)

As does legendary coach Jack Daniels, Rubio recommends following drills and striders with 30 to 60 seconds of running at race pace or a little faster.

“You know when you do a workout how the first rep usually sucks? Same thing can happen with the start of a race,” Rubio says. “So get the suck out of the way with some longer fast running within five minutes of the start. That will maintain your heart rate and keep your VO2 max near its peak so that when the gun goes off running at race pace isn’t a shock to the system.”

Kate Grace does the breathing part of Lion's Pose at the 2014 USATF outdoor championships.

Jeff Cohen/Courtesy of Oiselle

Since high school, Grace has included a series of breathing exercises in her warmup. Her mother, the fitness guru Kathy Smith, taught them to Grace “to help me find inner strength and calm my nerves,” she says. “They also help relax my jaw, shoulders, neck, and diaphragm.

Grace’s routine includes purposeful deep yawning, loud lip trilling, and a standing version of the yoga asana Simhasana, or Lion’s Pose. The latter entails inhaling through her nose and then exhaling loudly while opening her mouth widely and thrusting her tongue out.

On the Line

Especially in large races, it’s increasingly common to line up and then wait several minutes for the start. During this time, the benefits of your warmup will start to recede if you just stand in place.

In chilly temperatures, “warming up” in a literal sense can fade rapidly. “It is helpful to stay warm, so if conditions are cold, try to keep a hat and extra top on for as long as possible before the start,” Pfitzinger says.

Regardless of the temperature, keep moving as best as you’re able. One or two striders would be ideal but are often not possible. “Jogging in place is really useful in staying warm and retaining the benefits of your warmup,” Pfitzinger says. Grace says that she does high-knees and quick-feet drills “to keep my body activated and heart rate elevated.” She also jumps in place, attempting to bring her knees up to her armpits. While held on the line, Grace also does a few final breathing exercises to focus and calm herself.

While trying to stay ready to race, remember that you’re not the only one in the field.

“I used to do arm circles as well,” Pfitzinger says, “and learned to be careful when I hit a guy in the nose.”

Scott DouglasScott is a veteran running, fitness, and health journalist who has held senior editorial positions at Runner’s World and Running Times.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Runner's World participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.